CULTURE IN DIFFERENT LOCALITIES 157 
Set the plants twenty inches apart in the furrow, and 
by means of hand-rakes pull in enough earth to barely 
cover the crowns. 
As growth begins, the soil is to be gradually 
worked in around the advancing shoots till the soil is 
level. Now give a dressing of 1,000 pounds per acre, 
alongside the rows, of a mixture of 900 pounds of acid 
phosphate, 500 pounds of fish scrap, 200 pounds of 
nitrate of soda, and 400 pounds of muriate of potash, 
and keep the plants cultivated shallowly and flat with 
an ordinary cultivator till the tops are mature. An 
application of salt may be useful if applied in the fall 
in making some matters in the soil available, but salt 
in itself is of no use whatever to the plants. We 
would never apply salt in the spring, as it has a ten- 
dency to lessen nitrification and to retard the earliness 
of the shoots. 
The annual dressing of the fertilizer named should 
now be increased to a ton per acre, and it should 
be applied not later than February ist in each 
year. After the tops have been cut in the fall it isa 
good plan to plow furrows from each side over the 
rows and to plow out the middles, for the shoots will 
always start earlier in an elevated ridge, which warms 
up earlier in the spring. 
The second year after planting cutting may begin, 
and the shoots must be cut as fast as they show, care 
being taken to cut down near the crown of the roots, 
but not to injure the other shoots that may be start- 
ing. After cutting isover—and the length of time the 
bed should be cut is of little importance in the South, 
for the price at the point where it is shipped will 
